I think McMillan's seems optimistic on the marathon to a lot of us because we aren't sufficiently trained for peak performance at that distance.

Exactly.

Hey, out of curiosity, I would be interested to see what sort of schedule you're following. And I apologize for not being by earlier. I've been busy.

Hopefully you've been busy running! It's a homegrown schedule that works for me. It focuses on overall mileage, long runs, medium long runs, marathon paced runs, and some tempo runs and a couple of test races. Other than the couple of races, no workouts are done faster than tempo pace. Training schedule

Nice. I was looking at a program (http://www.runningtimes.com/rt/articles/?id=5995&c=36), and was oing to use it prep for CIM in December. Plans may have changed, however....but I digress.

The RT program looks decent. It has the long runs, the medium long runs, a fair amount of what they call AT running (marathon paced or slightly faster). I'm sure it would do the job. I just don't subscribe to doing a bunch of short track repeats for marathon training. But that's just me, I never found that to be beneficial. I do strides, but that isn't meant to be speedwork, rather it is meant to work on form. As far as hills go, instead of running hill repeats, I incorporate hills into my long runs and medium long runs. That way you get a strength and endurance workout combined. Whatever program you choose, good luck with it!

I generally agree with you on the track stuff. And where I live, it's impossible not to have some sort of hills in every run. I do see a certain benefit to doing a hill-specific workout, because it's run a little differently. Yes, I could see some of that being incorporated into another run, but I think that the real benefit comes from doing short and steep at a high effort, and long hills for an endurance effect.

I should have qualified my thoughts on hill work. You are right, specific hill repeats are a great way to build strength, and I do them myself, but I limit doing them to outside of my marathon specific training, such as in the rebuilding phase between marathons. For me, hard hill repeats are tough on my body, and trying to fit those in during a marathon program usually spells injury or fatigue that affects my other workouts. So yes, I agree that hill repeats are important, but again, for me, when I am into my specific marathon phase of the program, the repeats get set aside in favor of just incorporating hills into my longer runs. Unlike you, I have to seek out my hills to run on. Consider yourself lucky in a strange sort of way to have them!

In a fog... That describes the weather for my run this AM, it was soupy, drippy dead calm and just plain wet. It also describes how I felt. Still not used to the routine of getting up at 5am to run. That'll change I'm sure. Foggy mornings often produce good photo opportunities, so I packed my camera and snapped a few shots along the way, which I'll post later. It was a good run, 9 miles fairly easy. Still a little sore and tired from Tuesday's workout. This old body just doesn't bounce back like it used to. Had some rare stomach issues during the run, probably due to the 4 slices of pizza I ate the night before, or rather the garlic and hot pepper toppings on the pizza. Ran past a port-o-john at a park early on in the run, and decided to skip it thinking the urge would pass. Well it didn't, so I had to duck into the woods a couple of miles later. A friend of mine always tells me "Don't ever pass up an opportunity to use a bathroom" and his words echoed in my head as I was searching for the perfect tree. And wouldn't you know it, about 1/4 mile up the road after I was done there was a house under construction with a shiny new port-o-john sitting out by the road. I hate when that happens. Aside from that, as I said, it was a good run, kept it on the easier side of my pace range, looked around and enjoyed the foggy scenery and enjoyed every step of it. It's just good to be able to be out there.

Cool, pictures....do you bring a camera on all your runs?

Yawn... I think I ran this AM. My garmin said I did. I think I slept through it though. Getting back to the early morning routine is tough. I'm tired! Gotta make more of an effort to get to sleep earlier, because the training schedule isn't gonna get any easier from here on. Walked the dog a couple of miles first, then it was 5 easy miles of running on a humid, muggy, drippy morning. It was one of those runs where the sweat flies off the ends of your fingertips with each arm swing. Took it pretty easy because I was tired, plus tomorrows run is gonna be a bit of a challenge at this point in time with my training, so I wanted to be somewhat rested for that. Broke out a new pair of shoes this AM.... boy do new shoes smell and feel good!

Heh, sounds like you got what I've had the last couple days. The heat and humidity finally broke last night. I wish I had the opportunity to run this morning, it was perfect, but alas, I did not. Stuck at trying to get some miles in at lunch. Gotta love those early morning runs where you're not quite sure what you did....

You sent your lower heat and humidity our way today, thanks! There have been times that I've been stuck having to run at lunchtime in the summer.... it usually isn't much fun. Luckily I do have a park that I can go to not far from work that is near the water and most of the trail is tree covered, so the temps there are usually 5-10* lower than the surrounding area. Hopefully you got your lunchtime run in and didn't spend the rest of the afternoon sweating and dripping all over everything.